


A Friendly Shoulder

by deathwailart



Series: Rhiannon Amell [4]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Bonding, Female Friendship, Gen, Implied Relationships, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 03:58:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/857510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leliana and the Warden have a chat about Circle life and the aftermath of the Broken Circle quest.  References <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/852583">Antephialtic</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/852950">Camp Tales</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Friendly Shoulder

It's been almost a week since the tower was saved but Rhiannon is still finding it hard, trudging through brown countryside, fighting whatever comes across them. It feels as though she's trying to wade through a river of mud (really, it feels exactly like that, she's done it enough since leaving the tower by now) and she's exhausted, a bone deep weariness that she tries to shake off, crawling alone to her bed with Reaver beside her as company. She knows that some of them are worried – Alistair keeps giving her these looks and trying to joke and she tries to summon up a laugh or a response but she's so tired that it sounds hollow to her ears and that just prompts him to try harder, a confused frown on his face. Morrigan makes a few remarks that normally Rhiannon would reply to in kind but now she just shrugs them off and ignores the sting and Zevran, well, it's still painfully new with them and she doesn't know what she can and can't say around Zevran which is why she's grateful Wynne lets her cry to her, holding her close. It reminds Rhiannon of the very few memories she still has of her mother and how the Templars let her have one last cuddle as she dried her daughter's tears and told her to be brave, that she would be so wonderful and make her mother so proud. But there are things she can't tell Wynne because it feels awkward to even imagine telling the older woman some parts of her life when she already seems to find the flirtations and tent visits between Rhiannon and Zevran to be something to frown about.  
  
Nightmares are something she's accustomed to at this point in her life. It wasn't something she ever talked about much in the tower really because they were all in the same boat but Jowan knew and so did a couple of others she felt she could trust. There was always a strange sense of isolation that she wasn't sure was her own making or real; she was the First Enchanter's favourite for so long that sometimes she wondered if people really liked her or either wanted to be friends with said favourite or put up with her. If they used that friendship and it's such a conceited thought even now but there was a loneliness to being the good one, the one lauded as an example and the morning after her Harrowing the word had already spread like wildfire, how quick it was, how well she'd done.  
  
Having people she can talk to now who might judge her but who'll listen and fight and laugh with her, sharing this struggle, it's all very new.  
  
But the nightmares right now are of the tower – she might realise now how confining it was, a gilded cage (not even that gilded really) and a prison with her having to always be so in control of herself – and all those bodies she saw, people she knew and didn't, old and young and in between, Mage and Templar alike. Her home should not have been turned into a place of death by one of their own. Her home should not have drakes or abominations prowling alongside the corpses and the demons. Her home should not have those growths that squelch and pulse and make her sick. People should feel as safe as she did there, a place of learning, the one place where they can actually practice in safety. Walking through the halls she'd seen her old bed and upstairs the bed she'd never claimed, the library she'd spent all those hours in, the places where she'd exchanged stolen kisses and much more in hidden corners away from prying eyes. Now all she sees are the dead. It's like Wynne's nightmare that she saw thanks to Sloth, all those dead and the accusations. She sees Jowan too, bloodied and hurt and she knows Jowan wasn't there but he still looks at her with mournful eyes. Sometimes she sees Lily behind shadowed bars she cannot reach through who cries but never calls for help. She sees Duncan too and how she hates Sloth for summoning that image of Duncan, Duncan who had let her tease and make jokes at their first meeting and who had spared her from Greagoir's wrath upon helping a friend. Duncan who had made her into something new and who had died from betrayal. Duncan who had held her close as they'd spent their nights together all the way to Ostagar. She has new nightmares where Duncan shambles closer to her with blood gushing from his mouth, dagger through his thigh and arrows from his back, moaning out accusations.  
  
She doesn't tell anyone. Her nightmares are her own unless they're the ones she shares with Alistair and when they are it only takes one look to communicate that across the camp. Instead she carries on and does the rounds at camp, checking in, passing on gifts she thinks they'd like and getting to know them better. It makes her feel better, distracts her at least in those moments before she can crawl into her tent and cling to her mabari's fur.  
  
"You seem more..." Leliana pauses, pressing one finger to her lips as she regards Rhiannon who tries to make herself stand upright even though she wants nothing more than to collapse in her tent and fall into oblivion, to sleep without dreaming. "I can't put my finger on the exact word but you do not seem yourself, dear Warden. I cannot imagine how awful it must have been to see your home in such a state, to lose those you had known all your life. Did talking to Wynne help?"  
  
"It did," Rhiannon replies, mustering a small sad smile from somewhere. "Wynne understands what it was like, it was her home for longer than it was mine and she was there, when it all began."  
  
"I'm still so sorry," Leliana continues and when she holds out her arms, Rhiannon almost falls into them, grateful for the comfort, tucking her head against the woman's shoulder as her hands stroke through her hair. Idly, Rhiannon wonders how it is that Leliana can still smell so soft and clean, like wildflowers, even through all this and resolves to find her the Andraste's Grace she mentioned. She wants Leliana to have what few nice things she can here even if Rhiannon has never had such luxuries.  
  
"Thank you," Rhiannon whispers when she can move back without tears – she's been close to tears a lot at random moments but tries to hold it in. She's the leader, she can't fall apart. She has to be strong and confident and assured in her decisions and her mind, she has to be whatever they all think a Grey Warden should be even though no one's really taught her how to be one.  
  
"There's something more though, I can tell." Leliana's good at reading situations, people, what they say and don't say and something nags at Rhiannon who has known many Chantry sisters in her life but never one so canny as Leliana but she keeps setting it aside, telling herself to trust in her new friend and companion. Rhiannon _needs_ to let this out and Leliana is the one she can actually talk about girly things with – yes, she already likes to put on what make up there was in the Circle but now she's discovering a whole new world. Being able to have a conversation that normal women their age talk about makes her feel less like an outsider at times. So Rhiannon pushes down whatever fears she has and nods, finding her throat suddenly tight, sitting on a log, Leliana following her lead automatically.  
  
"You can't tell Alistair this," she says quickly, swallowing hard. "I never told him, I don't think I ever will it's...it's private and I don't want to colour his opinions in any way, he loved Duncan and respected him a great deal." Maker, the journey from the Wilds to Lothering had been fraught, Alistair grieving and her not knowing what to say – she'd never lost someone like that, only a mother she could barely remember and more recently Jowan and that wasn't the same. Duncan's death was the first time someone she had cared for had died in such a way. Morrigan had been there too and well, she'd felt that it was her job to lead them as best she could until such times as Alistair was ready to talk and to intrude on his grief more than offering to go to Highever with him and saying she missed him had felt wrong. "I didn't know Duncan long but there were stories we grew up with about the Grey Wardens and he saved my life."  
  
"So you respected him?"  
  
"Yes. But," Andraste save her she's blushing, "it was more. He was a handsome man, he had a sense of humour. Alistair told me later that Duncan knew he wasn't long for this world and perhaps that's why we..." She trails off and she's never been this flustered recounting who she's slept with and what she's done but the ghost pretending to be Duncan still has her rattled.  
  
"You and Duncan?" Leliana asks, her cheeks a little pink and eyes bright, leaning closer to Rhiannon as they sit and talk the way that's probably on the way to being a habit, Leliana's stories that Rhiannon loves because she's always had a soft spot for old tales and to hear them aloud from Leliana's lips is very different to reading them in old books.  
  
Rhiannon nods. "On the road from Lake Calenhad to Ostagar. It was different – I don't know how the Circles in Orlais functions but in Ferelden, there's not much to do beyond studying or finding a quiet corner with someone."  
  
"Oh there are rumours, certainly."  
  
"Well in Kinloch Hold, amongst the apprentices who are of age you experiment – the Templars don't like it, I suppose it goes against their teachings and Mages can't ever have fun," the bitterness in her voice catches her by surprise, the heat of it making her eyes sting, "or they're worried they'll have to deal with babies even though the most common spells we pass around help to avoid that even if you're a girl with a girl or a boy with a boy they complain." Leliana nods but her hand reaches out to find Rhiannon's in the dark and Rhiannon squeezes back, glad for the touch as though it might anchor her.  
  
"In Orlais it is all about the game, there is scandal if the wrong affairs are conducted but I know very little about the Circle – perhaps you have your own rules, as is only right."  
  
"I think I made Alistair embarrassed once or twice – I flirt. A lot."  
  
"Well I do remember Teagan and the lovely barmaid in Redcliffe and well, there were the comments when we first met," Leliana grins wickedly, giving Rhiannon a little nudge and somehow it feels as though something is sliding from her shoulders and when she exhales, the tightness in her chest eases. "There's nothing wrong with it, if you enjoy it and you and Zevran certainly don't seem to mind flirting with other people."  
  
"There was never just one person. Maybe because I was young and an apprentice. I mean I didn't just have a stolen moment with someone just the once but there wasn't really anyone special that was just the one person."  
  
"I understand," Leliana squeezes her hand again then tugs so that Rhiannon has her head on her shoulder. "Perhaps you'll have to discuss it with him but there's nothing wrong if you want to be with more than one person, so long as you both know that."  
  
"I know, it's just...there's so much going on. There's the Blight, there's Loghain and the civil war he's brewing, abominations in my home and I'm having nightmares about a man I barely knew."  
  
"He saved your life, he gave you a new one, he gave you a freedom you never thought you would have." Rhiannon just sighs, letting herself lean against her friend in the dark, listening to Reaver barking and the crackling of the fire for a time. "So...how did you and Duncan-"  
  
"Nightmares." Rhiannon doesn't even have to let her finish. "He wasn't sleeping well, nightmares and bad dreams and at first I just ignored it, I didn't know him well but all we did during the day was talk and talk so I felt like I knew him – or knew him well enough – quickly. One of the reasons you had trysts in the tower was under the pretence of nightmares."  
  
"Do Mages have trouble sleeping a lot?"  
  
"Sometimes. There's so much pressure in the tower to do this and do that, everyone crammed in together, all the factions, the Templars and the Fade...it's not like it would be for you, in the Fade we know exactly what's there and what they might want to do to us. So that little push, something fun, something that made you feel good and helped you forget?"  
  
"Oh I can well imagine. It must have been good for you and Duncan, alone on the road, the old soldier, the young impressionable Mage," Rhiannon snorts and Leliana giggles even as she shoves her, "allow a minstrel her romantic notions."  
  
"I think when I was the one to suggest it I ruined any ideas he might have had about me being impressionable."  
  
It's not even that funny but she tries not to laugh and it comes out as a snort and that sets Leliana off and soon they're wheezing, tears in their eyes and Rhiannon has to fight to breathe.  
  
"Maker's breath," she finally gasps, wiping at her face as Leliana fans herself. "I'm glad we met each other."  
  
"I am too, you're very dear to me. And it means so much that you can trust me enough to talk like this."  
  
"I was a stranger and you stepped in to help me in a tavern fight when everyone was against us. I didn't think anyone would stand up for a Mage like that, let alone someone being labelled a kingslayer."  
  
Something passes over Leliana's face. She dismisses it as a trick of the light as the other woman shakes herself. "Come, it's getting late, we should talk into the night about silly things like girls at the fancy sleepovers we had in Orlais."  
  
It's another new thing – Rhiannon shared a room with other girls and boys, all of them so close to each other, pretending not to hear tears or moans or whatever sounds there might have been in the night – to sit up giggling until Wynne eventually comes over and tells them to go to sleep. And Rhiannon isn't a silly little girl, neither is Leliana, but they both rustle under the blankets and hold their breath, trying not to giggle until Wynne's footsteps fade away before they laugh again, frantically shushing each other, snorting and wheezing and shooshing. She still has bad dreams, restless and Leliana wakes her gently, pulling her into a cuddle where Rhiannon gets to be the little spoon but it's good, she feels okay, able to sleepily talk her way through it all, feeling safe enough. In the morning she tries to thank Leliana over lumpy porridge but she just smiles and laughs, kissing her on the cheek (apparently cheek kissing is involved in a lot of Orlesian gestures and Rhiannon's sure she catches Morrigan gagging from where she sits a little bit away from them all) and telling her it's nothing.  
  
"It's the very least I could do for a friend."  
  
It gets easier in time. Other problems, new distractions, figuring things out with Zevran, little revelations about her friends and what they've all been through but sometimes, when she needs it or when she thinks Leliana does, she grabs her and tells her about these beautiful shoes she saw in the market wherever they were or begs for a story about Orlais or one of the tales Leliana won't tell when the rest of the camp might be listening. After all, this is what friends do and Rhiannon loves and adores all of her friends who have agreed to fight at her side against a Blight that isn't their responsibility. If this is how she can help (how she can come close to repaying the aid they're giving her) then it's something she's glad to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Bit of Mage headcanon: given the Fade being what it is, it's my personal headcanon that Mages are pretty prone to nightmares in general because of all the demons and just their connection to the Fade seeing as it's very strange and shifting. And the other headcanon is that in Ferelden, everyone was kissing everyone really - the Circle is very much removed from normal Thedas society so a lot of the Mages will have very different attitudes to sex and their sexuality.


End file.
